


Wizard Plans, Eru Laughs

by eris_of_imladris, Smaug



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings Online
Genre: Chickens, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Hobbits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 04:30:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20370724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eris_of_imladris/pseuds/eris_of_imladris, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smaug/pseuds/Smaug
Summary: It was meant to be the simplest of missions, before that strange hobbit got involved...A collaboration created for the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2019!





	Wizard Plans, Eru Laughs

**Author's Note:**

> It has been so much fun to write my first story using LotRO canon! Here are some things that may be pertinent for people who don’t play the game:  
\- Erisuithiel “Eris” and Sunfrith (known in-game as Bearlyarmed Bearydangerous) are my two main in-game characters. All of their items, pets, etc. are taken directly from the game.  
\- The keg that Bingo describes is the Inn League Sinister Keg, which teleports anyone who drinks from it to a random location, sans pants.  
\- Many of the activities in the story refer to other quests/missions in the Bingo Boffin questline, which is a 52-part quest that released once a week for a year.  
\- Chicken Play is a series of quests where the player takes control of a level 1 chicken trying to get from the Shire to to various places in Middle-Earth, including Angmar, Rivendell, Minas Tirith, and more.

It was meant to be the simplest of missions. A quick trip to Erebor, or at least as quick as such a trip could go, to follow up on a letter from Dáin and visit whichever members of the Company were available.

Gandalf planned to take the Company’s route, as much for securing the area as for sentimentality. Certain parts would be easier - Thranduil’s halls in Felegoth, certainly, without thirteen too-stubborn dwarves - but the path still felt strange without a hobbit plodding along on his pony, alternately complaining and marveling at the world before him.

There was no particular date he was expected, and thus, he would not be late, even with a short delay to Rhosgobel and a trip north to visit the descendents of Beorn. He could spare some time in the brief peace before the storm that was surely coming to even this most serene pasture east of the Carrock.

His peaceful thoughts were interrupted by a sudden scream.

There, between the large trees that surrounded the Beorninghús, as Beorn’s son Grimbeorn had taken to calling the hall, was a hobbit. Puzzled, Gandalf blinked twice as he emitted a shriek more worthy of a ringwraith than a hobbit who looked to be in no clear harm.

“A bee!” The hobbit yelled, his yellow hair sticking to his face with anxious sweat.

“That bee?” asked Gandalf, looking over to a nearby tree where a descendant of one of Beorn’s giant bees was floating placidly.

“Yes, that bee!”

Despite the fact that the bee in question was simply hovering in the air, not doing anything at all, the hobbit’s body trembled as he crouched down, perhaps trying to make himself into a smaller target.

“He will not harm you,” Gandalf tried to explain, but the hobbit almost seemed incapable of moving until Gandalf approached the bee, spoke to it softly, and encouraged it to seek another place to roam.

“Thank you,” said the hobbit, rising slowly. “I truly appreciate the help. My traveling companion would have helped me by now, but she went to go get food for her animals.”

The story made enough sense on the surface, but something just wasn’t making sense to Gandalf. He might have been one of the Istari, and someone who had seen much in his millennia of life, but there was something about the hobbit that befuddled him completely.

“Did you not know of the bees the beornings keep?”

“My friend told me about them, but not that they were so big! I thought it might impale me on its stinger.” He reached out his hand and offered Gandalf a tentative smile. “I’m Bingo Boffin, novice adventurer.”

Gandalf took his hand, brows furrowed as he tried to remember if any Boffins had ever made trouble outside of the Shire before. “Gandalf the Gray.”

“Oh, you’re Gandalf? My friend mentioned you!”

“Who is your friend?” He looked around, but the only other living creatures were the bee at the other end of the pasture and a small red chicken pecking at the ground.

“Her name is… well, it’s far too long to pronounce, so I call her Miss Eris. She’s an elf, you know. I’d never met one before, but meeting her certainly makes my journal more exciting.”

“Your journal?” Gandalf asked, ignoring the mention of the elf for the moment.

“Yes - I figured since I was going on an epic quest, I would write everything down. Then, when I go back to Michel Delving, I can show everyone what I’ve done!”

“You’re on an adventure?”

“But of course,” Bingo replied. “Although it’s not for me, definitely not.” He shook his head solemnly and reached down to pat the nearby chicken. “This little fellow here is on a quest to Erebor, and I am merely helping him along.”

Gandalf leaned over and looked at the chicken, blinking several times as he processed what the incredibly odd hobbit said. The chicken was trying to get to Erebor? What in the world would make him leap to such a conclusion? All Gandalf could tell was that it seemed to be looking for its next meal.

“How did this quest come about?” he asked skeptically.

“Well, you see, it all started when I went out to the Delving Fields, not far from home, and saw this rather single-minded chicken trying to make a run for it. Naturally, I stood to watch, and it didn’t take long until someone came chasing after him. At first, I thought this little fellow might be a stray from the Hobnanigans field, but poor Wald Sandson said he’s been trying to get into an adventure for some time. There’s been some elf helping him, but it seemed she wasn’t around.”

Bingo finally took a breath. “But then I met Miss Eris when I followed the chicken on the road to Bree, and she was happy to help me with my quest! She said she’s used to animals having peculiar wishes, and I could tell that from the ones that traveled with her. And we were going to take the East Road from Bree, but we had a little too much fun with a keg one night and wound up at this party at a vineyard with a bunch of blonde elves speaking rather strangely, and then Miss Eris had to go on a quest to find my pants while correcting their grammar… strange times.”

Gandalf blinked.

“When the elves learned of our mission - the next day, of course - they were kind enough to lend us some supplies and they even lent me a pony, which Miss Eris convinced me to not be afraid of, and we rode north and found this place.”

Finally, the hobbit ran out of air and allowed Gandalf a moment to speak. But what could he even say to this? He was used to journeys that made sense, meant to reclaim an ancient artifact or a long-lost homeland. Not to deliver a chicken to Erebor, which reminded him…

“Why do you think the chicken wants to go to Erebor?”

“Well, surely, he heard people speaking of Bilbo’s adventures and wanted to have some fun of his own. I can’t blame him - as soon as I saw a map of the place, I was quite eager to go myself. And then, it was only natural that we would travel together.”

“I… see,” said Gandalf, although he definitely didn’t see. Why in the world was a hobbit making such a large journey, and on that matter, how was he doing it? There was no doubt he lacked a certain… well, common sense, necessary to undergo such a journey.

Before he could delve much deeper into that, however, he soon became aware of a third person nearby. Tall and imposing, with thick brown hair, the woman before him was unmistakably one of Beorn’s kin.

“Is all well here?” she asked gruffly. “I heard a scream.”

“Everything is well,” Gandalf said, hoping his words were true and Bingo was not about to cause more trouble.

“As a matter of fact,” Bingo interjected as Gandalf cringed, “your bee decided to scare me, but I have overcome my fears and he is no longer frightening.” These words were slightly offset by the way Bingo winced just a little as he observed the floating bee.

“The bees are harmless unless you hurt them first,” she explained, then turned to Gandalf. “I take it you are here to visit my father?”

“If your father is Grimbeorn, then the answer is yes,” he replied. “Gandalf the Gray, at your service.” At least this time he didn’t have to make excuses for thirteen dwarves and a hobbit, although the hobbit this time around was far stranger.

She pondered his name for a moment, then nodded. “He is back in the hall, it is nearly time for dinner.”

“Oh, dinner! They make the best food here, Gandalf. You can eat like a hobbit in their halls! Even Miss Eris and her pets agree,” Bingo enthused.

The woman didn’t look altogether pleased at the mention of the pets, which was another mystery considering the beornings often took care of many animals. “I can show you back to the hall, if you wish,” she said. “We can avoid the bees.”

“That would be splendid,” said Bingo, but instead of following at the normal pace the woman in front of him had taken, he plodded along at such a slow pace that it seemed like he’d take a year to simply reach the door. Distracted by everything from flowers to the movements of the chicken… how could he have made it so far out of the Shire? Not to mention, he had an elf as his traveling companion… surely, this elf must be a creature of extraordinary patience, as it may take the rest of her unending life to achieve this purposeless mission!

The hall crept up in the distance as Gandalf stuck to Bingo’s pace, trying - subtly at first, less subtly later - to get him to hurry. The woman kept looking behind her and grumbling, and quickly went to get some more stools for the table as soon as she swung the door open.

Inside, the hall was warmer than Gandalf remembered it, likely from the presence of many more people than he had seen before. Many were beornings, either from their looks or the way they greeted the woman who’d led them back as kin, and several animals roamed the great open room, as did a swarm of flies lazily hovering over a plate of fruit.

Gandalf easily spotted the elf nearby. She was recognizable as one of Elrond’s folk, farther from Imladris than expected, but that was far from the strangest thing about her. When he opened the door, she was slathering honey onto a thick slice of bread, only to place it on the table beside her as a long, skinny trunk reached out to grab it.

“What is that?” Bingo asked, walking closer without an answer as Gandalf froze. Beside the bench stood an oliphaunt.

Not a particularly large one. A youngling, too small to inflict much damage, clearly being treated as a pet by people who should know better. Well, the elf should know better. Gandalf knew better than to question which animals the beornings welcomed into their lodge, but an oliphaunt was far from conventional. They certainly knew how to handle large animals like the bees, but an oliphaunt was on an entirely different scale.

When it grew up, of course. For now, the little one was nudging the elf for food like a hound at table. Every time it nudged the elf, there was a small clanging sound as the pot lid it wore as a helmet hit the wooden table.

“Bingo!” she called out when the door opened. “I saved you a seat, if Fluffy’d move himself.” She lightly elbowed the oliphaunt, who seemed young and playful enough to not care. He reached up his trunk and slapped it against her cheek. She let out a peal of laughter.

“Not what I meant,” she said as she noticed Gandalf, rising to her feet with a certain grace that was the only elflike thing about her, as far as he could tell. “Fancy seeing you here, Mithrandir! Did you come to aid in Bingo’s quest?”

It seemed rather fitting that Bingo’s companion would be so… Bingo-like, Gandalf mused as he nodded his head. “I did not know of his quest,” he said. “I am simply passing through.”

“I suppose it’s fortuitous that you came this way, then,” she said. “We’ve been traveling for some time already, so some help would be greatly appreciated.”

“You came to help them?” asked the beorning woman Gandalf met earlier as she walked by, a large platter of food in hand. Bingo quickly found his way to her side, sniffing out the best dishes with the zeal only a hobbit could master.

A moment of hesitation from Gandalf was all the answer she needed. “Wonderful. We have been helping them, but it is… difficult to deal with guests like these.” Frustration was barely hidden in her voice, and Gandalf wondered how the situation hadn’t already come to blows. If he had any hope of learning how things were in these lands, and perhaps even assisting the beornings with their peacekeeping on the way back, he supposed he had no other choice but to help the hobbit on his mission.

It wasn’t the first time he would do something like this - nor, if his suspicions about Bilbo Baggins’ ring were true, would it be the last. But never before had he undertaken a mission like this with such strange individuals. Even the odder members of the Company would be utterly perturbed by Bingo Boffin and his elven companion!

“Yes, I will help lead them to Erebor,” Gandalf said, wondering exactly how much time he was about to lose and hoping he wasn’t about to doom the world for the sake of an apparently-adventurous chicken.

The beorning woman appeared relieved, especially when the elf let out a happy noise more expected from a child than an ancient being. She must be a young elf, Gandalf realized - a very young one. “I appreciate your help,” she said, “and I’m sure my father will as well. See, here he comes,” she motioned as an older beorning (looking much older than the last time Gandalf had seen him, befitting one called Grimbeorn the Old) entered the room.

“Ah, Sunfrith, our guests are still here?”

“They will be leaving on the morrow,” she said solemnly. “Gandalf the Gray has come to assist them.”

Gratitude flashed in Grimbeorn’s eyes as he took a seat, eyeing the oliphaunt at the other end of the table. “I appreciate it,” he said in greeting, likely the most effusive praise Gandalf would ever get from one like him.

He nodded, determined to get some more information on the Vales before his inevitable departure, but soon realized that Grimbeorn wished to speak with his own family while eating. Gandalf settled for sitting next to the elf, who introduced herself as Erisuithiel (undoubtedly why Bingo didn’t use her full name), and he was just about to attempt to enjoy the feast when a cloud of flies alighted on his plate.

He grumbled slightly at the unexpected annoyance, only to be surprised when the elf spoke up. “Faeron, stop bothering him,” she said, and the flies moved away.

“Which one is Faeron?” Bingo stumbled through the pronunciation with a mouth half-full of berries. “The leader?”

“All of them - I mean, that's the only way to name a fly swarm, otherwise you'd have to call them all individually,” the elf explained. “That would take far too long in battle.”

“Do they help you in battle?” Bingo asked.

“Not usually, but sometimes they can distract an opponent by flying into their face,” she explained.

Everyone was quiet for several moments as everyone began to eat. Even the finest food of Grimbeorn’s table was not enough to settle Gandalf from the presence of the strange traveling companions, and he soon found himself wondering exactly how this journey came about. Not wishing for another wordy explanation from Bingo, he turned to Erisuithiel for answers. There was so much he could ask, but the oliphaunt came to mind first.

“I was paying a visit to Radagast the Brown,” she explained, and suddenly, things made a great deal more sense. “I found this oliphaunt wandering near the Bruinen and since he was so far from his home, I thought I would try to find where he belongs. But the little guy didn’t want to leave me, so…” Her voice trailed off as the oliphaunt laid its now-sticky trunk on her shoulder.

Gandalf had a brief moment of amusement as he imagined Elrond’s face if this odd elf tried to bring an oliphaunt into the Hall of Fire. A very, very brief moment.

“And the flies?”

“I thought they were there for him at first,” she patted the oliphaunt’s pot lid helmet. “But they took an interest in me. Radagast said they were looking for an adventure.”

A perfectly Radagast-like thing to say, he knew, not that it made much sense or annoyed the beornings any less. “And so you named them.”

Erisuithiel nodded, and the conversation only got stranger from there. At least things made a little more sense considering Radagast was involved, but he still felt like he was mired in an impossible situation. They sat at the table for what felt like a very long time, but when the oliphaunt found a nice corner of the hall to curl up and make deafening snoring sounds, Grimbeorn’s face darkened again, and Gandalf decided it was time to make his move.

“If I may, could we discuss the state of the Vales before I leave?”

The mention of leaving brightened his expression just a little, and Gandalf soon managed to get at least some of the information he’d hoped for about the local villages, brigand activity, and more. It felt like all too soon that the sun set and with it, the last normal day he would have of this journey.

The flies found him in the morning, and Eris’s chirpy voice soon got him ready to go. His things were still mostly put together, as was his horse, but it took so long for Bingo to get on the back of his pony that he wondered if the journey would even continue at all. For such a poor rider, it took quite a long time to get him on the pony’s back, and the chicken fell out of his arms no fewer than four times, necessitating restarting the entire process. By the time they were set to leave, it was practically midday, and his patience was frayed thin.

“I presume we ride north,” he said when they were finally on their way, albeit still stuck to following the pony’s plodding pace.

“That’s what I thought,” Eris said, turning around to check that the oliphaunt was still following behind. “I’ve never been to Mirkwood before. Do you think King Thranduil would care for visitors?”

Gandalf had only seen visitors Thranduil would want less when the Company came by, but if there was enough alcohol, well… Either way, there was no dissuading the elf, who had apparently told Bingo that she was going to show him the king’s halls even when he was barely sitting on his pony correctly.

He supposed there was something praiseworthy in Bingo, for following his ideals and doing what he thought would help the world, but Gandalf soon discovered that every step of the journey was progressively more painful than the last.

As if the slow pace wasn’t enough, Bingo seemed terrified of the idea of going into the forest, and took what felt like several hours deliberating about whether to even make the attempt before deciding that the chicken was more important than his own fears - and then, of course, still quaking from the moment his pony put one hoof through the gate out of the Vales of Anduin.

“Stay on the path,” he felt like he had to say ten thousand times, but it seemed like from the moment when Gandalf said the area was dangerous, he felt like sightseeing, making the pony’s pace even slower than usual and making keen observations about every twig and flower and bit of birdsong until Gandalf thought he’d be in the darkness of the forest until the end of time.

The entrance to Felegoth passed without much notice - apparently, the small fox on the right was more interesting - and Gandalf had to stop Bingo from sneaking the fox into his tunic before they could continue on their way. It was a relief that Eris seemed to be as terrible with directions as possible - twice, she directed them towards ancient barrows or spider lairs instead of Felegoth - and thankfully, they avoided having to meet the king, even though he and Eris did have to fight off several giant spiders while Bingo cowered once again. 

Their long, arduous, way filled with every distraction possible, and each night, Bingo got unbearably tired and needed someone else to keep watch, and considering Eris’s chattiness and the way the oliphaunt seemed to attract every strange wildlife in the area, Gandalf found himself getting very tired as well, albeit for a very different reason. 

One day, Bingo simply fell into a large hole by the side of the road, as if it hadn’t been quite visible from the beginning, and it took a significant amount of time to get him out, when he merely let Eris and Gandalf help him as if there were not giant spiders around that could easily eat him for breakfast. And breakfast! Unlike Bilbo, he simply wouldn’t take “no” as an answer for second breakfast, and he needed fresh ingredients too! Gandalf muttered to himself that if he ever traveled with hobbits again, he would put an end to that right away.

Not that the conversation was much better. As the journey dragged on, Gandalf kept seriously wondering how the hobbit could have even found his way out of the Shire when he seemed incapable of doing anything at all by himself.

“It’s Miss Eris,” he nodded towards the elf, smiling. “She’s been such a help to me since I told her I’d help this chicken find its way home. She helped me find my walking-stick and my satchel, and then my second satchel, and the recipe for the tastiest…”

Knowing the hobbit could go on forever like this if not stopped. Gandalf interjected, “Yes, I understand.”

Even when he didn’t, he eventually took to saying he understood. He was not a curmudgeonly wizard, but even he was beginning to lose his cool after the days dragged into weeks and he was still hearing about all the adventures the chicken wanted to have in Erebor, only to have to stop whenever a particularly “good” idea crossed the hobbit’s mind and he needed to write it in his journal. For some reason, Bingo seemed to think people would want to read a series of disjointed reflections from the strangest journey he’d ever heard of, and hear about every detail from the mud that made him wash his feet for twice as long as usual that day to the color of a fuzzy centipede he found marching along his arm and stopped their progress to investigate.

The elf Eris seemed to get lost just as much as Bingo, and Gandalf soon felt like he was on duty to keep them from stepping off the path every five minutes, even though their horses seemed to have the right idea. Dim lanterns gleamed in the dark and he tried to convince them to follow, only for some distraction or another to captivate their attention and drag them away from the safe path.

And, of course, Bingo got so sidetracked that he found himself completely off the path one day, while searching for “proper hobbit mushrooms” that Gandalf assured him at least half a dozen times didn’t exist in this part of the world. Naturally, it took the better part of a day to find him, with the oliphaunt’s footsteps stirring up every creature in the forest and creating unmistakable paths (hopefully Thranduil would consider this a public service rather than a nuisance) - and the hobbit was not perturbed in the slightest as he laid out some cheese from Eru-knows-where next to the mushrooms and happily ate them.

But then, since he’d added the strange cheese to his impromptu feast, he felt ill for a whole day, only to admit at night that the cheese came from some sort of “dungeon-y place” to the south of his cousin Prisca in Buckland, and sent Eris to find herbs to brew a cure as Gandalf tended the fire, carefully observed by the small oliphaunt.

It was with great relief that Gandalf saw the tree line thinning as they approached Dale from the west. Their journey was starting to come to a close, and it couldn’t end fast enough. Between Eris chattering away, the lumbering footsteps of the oliphaunt beside her, the annoying buzzing of the flies, and the equally annoying noises coming from Bingo as he seemingly tripped over every single tree root in the entire forest, Gandalf was absolutely thrilled to see the city of Dale from a distance.

It looked quite different since the last time he’d been there, thankfully. There were no dragons in the air (although he wouldn’t be surprised if Eris would want to keep one as a pet, even after repeated attempts to get her to ditch the oliphaunt while it was still young and relatively harmless), and the city bustled with activity and life. There was still a journey to actually reach the city, and by the time they got there, he was completely and utterly exhausted.

He had intended to speak to King Brand about the state of the area, much as he had with Grimbeorn, but he simply had so little patience that he found himself unable to muster the energy to do more than manage Bingo. He, of course, was determined to befriend everyone from the children on the street who enlisted him in games of tag to the beggars at the corner and the tavern barmaids, so Gandalf had his hands full keeping the hobbit out of trouble.

The chicken, meanwhile, marched resolutely forward, almost as if it… actually wanted to go to Erebor. That might have been the most confusing part of their stay in Dale, especially when he woke up one night to find the chicken walking into the wall of their inn room - in the direction that faced Erebor - again and again, as if it was actually trying to leave. For once in his life, Gandalf actually wished he’d gone to visit Radagast himself - even though his advice was lackluster in most matters, surely he would know what to do with an adventurous chicken.

The only thing Gandalf could think of was to try to keep the small party moving, silently bemoaning that he seemed to be the only person of intelligence within the group. It was such an ordeal to keep Bingo actually moving - and the chicken away from people who looked like they wanted to turn a profit - that it took them a while to actually leave, although (for once) the oliphaunt did come in handy intimidating those who didn’t want to let the travelers pass.

The road was a welcome sight, even more so when the Lonely Mountain loomed over the horizon. He might have even admitted to enjoying a night they spent on the road there, sharing stories of the Company and reminiscing with a captive audience about everything from the journey’s major moments to the little things he missed about the ones who had not survived. Eris, as he’d predicted, was young and not very worldly, and Bingo actually kept quiet for once, writing down his observations in his journal.

As they rode again the next day, Gandalf mused that it was strange to make such a journey again, and even stranger that it felt somehow easy. The troubles of this tale were not dragons and gold-sickness but annoying hobbits and elves, and those, he could certainly handle. Sometimes, he had to remind himself of that (and some days, more than once), but it was certainly easier than trying to strategize for an aerial fight and watch over an increasingly brooding Thorin.

Not that things were completely easy, of course - now that Smaug’s presence was gone, much of the wildlife of the area had returned, and it was up to Gandalf to stop both Bingo and Eris from adopting several of the strange animals they found along the way. For all of his fears, Bingo even tried to adopt a lynx, only stopping when Gandalf told him in no uncertain terms that the chicken would be the lynx’s dinner. He said a tearful goodbye to his whiskered friend, although for the two days after that at the abominably slow pace they still took, he insisted on telling stories about the sort of adventures the lynx must be having without him.

Even though it felt like forever, it was not actually far from Dale to Erebor, and the mountain loomed larger as they plodded along at the pony’s steadfast pace. The excitement in the group was palpable, particularly from Gandalf. By the fifth time Bingo needed to stop on the last day to investigate something in his surroundings, this journey felt even more arduous than the Company’s trip, even without a dragon waiting at the end!

Instead, at the end, there was peace. The kind of peace that allowed for strange people like Bingo and Eris to make their way in the world, to travel on these sorts of strange journeys without coming to harm. It was reassuring, in a way - but especially so when he realized that his own part in this journey was coming to a close. After all, unseen forces were stirring in Middle Earth, and he was needed to guard the fate of more than just a chicken for his destiny to be fulfilled.

When word of his impending visit reached Dáin, the king and several of his important councilors traveled to the steps before the great doors, a rather important greeting committee for the weary party.

“Welcome, old friend,” he said, holding his arms out before a chicken and an even more eager hobbit stepped foot inside the great hall.

“We’ve done it! Look, Miss Eris, we’ve done it!” Bingo exclaimed as he picked up the chicken and gave it a hug as it squawked, rather pleased with itself.

Dáin looked over at the hobbit, then over to the cheering elf and the oliphaunt beside her. He met Gandalf’s eyes with skepticism.

“It’s a long story,” Gandalf sighed.

**“A new Title has been bestowed upon you, you may now be known as Gandalf the Gray, There And Bawk Again.”**


End file.
